Saturday, May 11, 2019

Fictional-ish by Nataline Reis

A stand-alone romantic comedy set against the background of Scottish small towns and locks that will make you laugh, cry, and definitely melt your heart.

Livie Dunn, bookworm and aspiring bookstore owner, has been in love with her best friend ever since he dropped a bug down her shirt in primary school. She never stopped hoping that one day he’d realize they were made for each other.

Until Mia got in the way.

Kyle Huang has been taught to always do the right thing. But when that involves ostracizing his best friend by marrying her childhood nemesis, Mia, life as he knows it derails and crashes. Suddenly, their happy ever after seems like a broken dream, especially when Livie moves across two continents to open a bookstore in Scotland.

To salvage a love that seems all but lost, Kyle must come to terms with his own bad choices and hope that Livie is willing to forgive and help him face his demons—a task that is anything but simple. Will he be able to reignite her love or will he lose it all?

An uncomfortable silence fell between us. It was strange to be with the one man I was the most familiar with in the whole wide world and yet feel so shy. I knew where all his scars were and the stories that went with them, where his secret tattoo was—upper thigh, almost at the bend of the leg—and why he kept it a secret—a tribute to his twin sister who died shortly after birth. I was there when he broke down in tears the day his parents got a divorce, and he held me while I cried over my first broken heart. His scent was as familiar to me as the air I breathed, and yet I felt awkward and uneasy sitting in that small living room across from him.

Our souls had been connected since we were children, and there was no one in the world I’d feel more at ease with. Kyle was home to me.

“I love the name of the bookstore, Liv, but I don’t want it to be our tag line.” I stopped and turned to him, not sure what he was getting at. “I don’t want our friendship to turn into something fictional, something that never happened, do you?”

I was over the moon thinking of a long drive alone with Livie as my captive audience.

“They still make those?” I chuckled as he unfolded and studied the paper map with the intensity of an old scholar pouring over a treasure map. “What are you looking for?”

“Are you just going to sit there and stare?” Kyle’s mouth had gone slack and he looked paralyzed, sitting with his back to the wall. “If you don’t get naked with me, there’s not much point in this, is there?”

Kyle and I slept in each other’s arms, hanging on to each other with all we had, the blanket swaddling us like a cocoon.

How do you tell the love of your life that your ex-wife has your life in her hands? That she’s holding it with an iron fist and won’t let go?

“I want you to feel good, Kyle. To know you deserve better than Mia. To know that I love you, no matter what.”

Oh my God. I so didn’t deserve this angel.

“Don’t. Stay a little longer.” Be mine for a few more minutes.

I sighed, the weight on my chest releasing as I exhaled, in awe of my good fortune—how many guys could boast to have an angel as their lover?

“I’m admiring you, idiot.”

He rose on his forearms. “Why admire the painting from afar, when you can have it for yourself?”

“It’s not fiction, Liv. We’re real. What we have is real.”

My body relaxed, the hot water washing away the kinks in my muscles. No water would ever be able to wash away the weight of my frustration and regret.

“I choose you, Livie.” His voice was so soft I was not sure I’d understood correctly.

In a swift move, I grabbed him by the waist and pushed him down on the bed, rolling over him. “You know what they say; if you want it done right you must do it yourself.”

Livie could bring out the sun on the rainiest day.

Author of We Will Always Have the Closet, Desert Jewel, and Loved You Always, Natalina wrote her first romance in collaboration with her best friend at the age of 13. Since then she has ventured into other genres, but romance is first and foremost in almost everything she writes.

After earning a degree in tourism and foreign languages, she worked as a tourist guide in her native Portugal for a short time before moving to the United States. She lived in three continents and a few islands, and her knack for languages and linguistics led her to a master’s degree in education. She lives in Virginia where she has taught English as a Second Language to elementary school children for more years than she cares to admit.

Natalina doesn’t believe you can have too many books or too much coffee. Art and dance make her happy and she is pretty sure she could survive on lobster and bananas alone. When she is not writing or stressing over lesson plans, she shares her life with her husband and two adult sons.

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